These are probably the most inexperienced miners we’ve ever helped.
Their goal of 100 ounces is unobtainable the way they’re running now.

02 — Not good guys.
No, not good at all. It’s painful.
That doesn’t even pay for the fuel that you use on your plant.

You said your goal was 100 ounces this year?
Yeah.
So that means you got to get an ounce a day.
That’s nowhere near it.
No.

For the first time ever, Freddy and Juan will completely refurbish a plant that hasn’t run in years.
Their aim: quadruple the amount of pay that can be processed to feed the plant.

They will attach the hopper, install new grizzly bars, and plumb in a pre-wash system to power the trommel.
They will replace the old electric motor with an entirely new gas-powered engine.

Finally, the old sluice box will be modified with higher sides and given a new riffle and carpet setup to catch both coarse and fine gold.
The goal: 100 ounces in the remaining 3 months of the season.

Well, it’s a lot of money.
All right, let’s see what they say.

— How we doing?
— Good, good.
— Yeah, okay. Get it organized.

Well, we kind of came up with some numbers.
Wanted to see what you guys think.

If you guys have any chance of being able to get the ounce-a-day goal, you’re going to have to go to that bigger plant.
But in order for that to happen, there’s quite a bit we got to do.
A lot of cost involved in it — with motors, pumps, the steel.
You know, we’ve got a rough estimate of about $14,000 just in material.

— Wow.
— That’s a bunch.

But reality is, without that bigger plant running, you have no chance of being able to reach your goal.

— Hold on a second. I really need you to back up for a second, okay?
So let me see if I got this understanding.
Right from the front — right from the grizzly — right to the back end, there’s a whole rework that has to be done.
A lot of stuff. Labor. $14,000 plus six ounces of gold.

I’ll tell you what.
We usually want to double the amount of gold, but in this situation, double of very little is still very little.
If we don’t get you 20 times the amount of golds in that first cleanup — which was not a lot — right?
Then you don’t pay us for labor.
Still pay for the material.

— Pay for the material.
— So 20 times more gold from what we had on our first test run?

That’s nearly half an ounce.
— Yep.

So it’ll get you half an ounce in 4 hours.
So that gets you in a 10-hour day — you’re roughly doing an ounce of gold a day.
— Right.

— I’m good with that.
— All right. Perfect deal.
— All right. Awesome.
— Yep.
— Thank you.
— Means everything. Thank you.

So we’re going to call in some workers of ours to come and give us a hand.
But we’re still going to need your guys’ help.
— You tell us what we need to do, and we’ll be getting her done.

— We’ll go start planning stuff.
— Yeah, got to make some phone calls.
— Let’s do it.
— All right. Sounds good, guys.
— See you in a bit.
— Fantastic.
— Thanks guys.

If we can get to that 20 times what our cleanup was, this will actually start to pay for itself.
We are moving so much more material.

Two hours into the test, the team have churned through 80 yards of dirt — four times the amount of pay from the previous run.

— Honestly, for a shot in the dark, I think we did all right.
— Yeah, I think so too.

The sluice is running good.
Drive system’s running good.
Grizzlies are working good. That works.

— First time running, I’m happy with it.
— I am as well.

This wash plant was a complete unknown.
We didn’t know how it was really going to run.
But it’s going great.

Nothing’s holding us up now.
We’ve got the flow of that water — see it’s moving all the way across.
And now that water has to take a long journey before it gets to your other pond — makes the silt drop out.

They’re running a lot more material.
The material coming off the end of the trommel — very proud, very happy, and excited to see what’s going to happen at the end of this.
That’s what it’s all about.

They’re a lot smoother as a crew now.
I wouldn’t say a well-oiled machine just yet, but they’re doing pretty good.
— Lightly oiled.
— Lightly oiled.

I think they’re getting the general gist of how it’s supposed to go down.
They’re doing good though.
— Looking good, buddy.
— Looking good.

121 — last bucket, huh?
Four hours — that’s the run.
— AJ, last bucket.
— Copy that. Last bucket.

See how much gold’s in the sluice box.
That’s it. Shut her down.

[Music]

— Hopefully it’s in the mats.
— Yep, buried in there.
— We’ll let you guys get it cleaned up.

— All right.
I always like to see a lot of gold when you shut down on the mat.
I didn’t see a lot.
This sluice box didn’t look great at all.

So I don’t know if we made the right call going 20 times from what we had on our first test run.
Freddy said it, so we got to stick to it.
But maybe that was the wrong call.

[Music]

Takes 5 minutes just to fill up these little pans.
At the Neighbor Creek mine, the crew begin their cleanup.

— I’m sorry about just jumping in.
— No, please.
— Oh, thank goodness.

But the gold-bearing concentrate is still filled with other heavy minerals.

— What are you doing, Freddy?
— Right now we’re just using this magnet to get the magnetic heavies out of it so we don’t have to deal with them.
— Right.
— So we aren’t fighting our way through them to get to the gold.
— Yep.
— Here, I got my contractor’s license, Fred.
— Oh, so you can release Freddy’s mining hack.

Use the magnet through a piece of plastic to quickly release the worthless heavy metals.
— Fantastic.
— You guys are — even though they’re novice to mining — they’re not novice to hard work.

If you have a crew that you enjoy being with and you can work with and work hard with — you know, that’s worth its weight in gold.
I mean, the University of Gold by Freddy and Juan — we’ve got our two professors there teaching us what gold mining is.

— Getting rid of all this, I got excited.
— Wow, in 5 minutes already learned so much.
— With the magnet, that was a game changer.
— We cut from 9-hour cleanup to one. So that’s huge.

— Got it all cooked up.
— When I looked in that sluice box, my heart sank.
— Oh mine too.

Really, to hit Freddy’s 20-times gamble and put the miners on course for their 100-ounce season goal from this test, they need at least 4 ounces.

— That looks better than the first one, huh?
— It’s a lot better.
— Oh yeah.

— Okay, we just went past your first run.
— Wow.
— Uh-oh.
— Look at there — there’s 0.40 right there.
— There’s 0.29.
— There’s 0.29.
— There’s a little more gold left.
— 0.49 — dang near to half an ounce.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s a half ounce.
Half an ounce in a 4-hour run.
So realistically, in a full day, you can do an ounce.

Well, that puts you on target for your 100-ounce season.
Quite an ambitious goal of 100 ounces for the season.
With the gold way we just had right now, that’s a possibility.

But more than anything, they have a future here.
— Well guys, I couldn’t be more happy.
— I mean, look at the difference.
— Your guidance has been huge.

— You guys take care, okay?
— Thank you so much.
— Thank you guys. It’s a pleasure.
— See you later.
— It means everything.
— It means I get to live the life of a gold miner.
— It proves my theories about this claim.
— I’m more than happy with everything.

You question, “Am I going to get a return on this?”
Freddy gave us a good path.
Juan showed us a good path.
And it’s working.
We’re getting our money back out of what we put our heart and soul in.

[Music]

— Hey Freddy, Juan — just want to give you guys a little update here.
— The first snowflake started to fall, but we’ve made it back, and we do have some good news for you.
— Freddy showed me how to prospect.
— We managed to open up some other cuts and really have some great success with it.
— I can’t believe what you guys did for us.
— I was really running there at the end of the season.

The sluice box — it’s working amazing now.
We’re getting all the gold at the top end.

— You guys want to know what our total was?
— You guys — you nailed it.
— You crushed it with us.
117.3 ounces.

— Freddy, we love you.
— We’re coming back next year.

That’s the most important thing.
Here’s to next year.
We got it.
Next year — we got another season.

Freddy. Juan.